Born Again

New York, July 2011

Born Again is a reportage about women's victims of domestic violence in New York . Those Women have changed their life after too much pain and domestic slavery. This reportage is made in one of the few shelters where women can find a place to restart and help in order to live a better life.

...It all started one cold and rainy November, when I met Donna Ferrato during her Workshop in Lucca, in Italy. Throughout the two days she showed her work and explained it to us. Never before had I seen such a passion and involvement, someone so deeply immersed in a really personal work. I was struck by Donna she got to me, deep down, as did the subject she deals with the most, Female Domestic Violence. This, unfortunately, is a common happening in today’s society, but few people really know the problem.

From this brief, but intense experience, I decided at once that it would have been important and a “once in a life-time” chance for me to take part in Donna’s workshop on Domestic Violence in July. So I flew to New York. As a rule, when I work on self portraits, or introspective portraits I am used to not only focusing on the superficial aspect of situations I try to capture on film. And in this way I managed to catch the deep-rooted and hiddensideof those women; clearly after I had the possibility to get a bit closer to them, by living with them and sharing their days.

After the reportage on Female Domestic Violence I did NY, I realized how vitally important it is for me to go into the depths of things like this and try to understand other people’s suffering.. I was lucky enough to be able to work alongside a great and wonderful photographer and a great and wonderful woman. She was able to transmit her determination and energy, which transformed itself in an inner message to me … I must continue to fight for what I believe in. I will be grateful to Donna and those women forever